So we have a child soldier, one who, in a civilized society, would be sent for help and deprogramming, but the our military first tortures him and now sets a trial date of October 8.
Politic much?
Category: Torture
First Gitmo Habeas Suit Filed
It’s been filed by Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al Ginco who is demanding that the US government show cause as to why he is detained.
According to the article, before he was detained and tortured by us as a potential terrorist, he was detained and tortured by the Taliban as a US spy in Afghanistan.
I think that we will be discovering that we tortured a bunch of innocent people, and now Bush and His Evil Minions™ are afraid that if we let them go, they will be angry at us…well, duh.
“There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes.”
So says retired Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the review of the Abu Ghraib scandal, and was then forced out when the report told the truth, in the introduction to the report from Physicians for Human Rights on torture under US detention, which uses, among other things, the roadmap of scars on its victims:
Neither the Bush administration nor the Pentagon commented on the unpublished report yesterday. President Bush has repeatedly said he does not condone torture and allows interrogation techniques that are aggressive but legal.
The report challenges that contention with a detailed physical and psychological profile of each of the former detainees. In two of the cases, the medical investigators had access to the subjects’ recent medical records. All 11 men were given pseudonyms for their protection, according to the report.
The doctors found that “Kamal,” an Iraqi in his late 40s held from September 2003 until June 2004 at Abu Ghraib, has a lesion near his right ear that is “consistent with a healed cut from a sharp-edged instrument,” according to the report. He also had another wound by his left ear, described as “a healed puncture injury” that matches “Kamal’s description of being stabbed with a screwdriver in his cheek by a soldier,” the report states.
Psychologically, “Kamal’s clinical presentation, reported history of abuse, and the result of psychological testing support the presence of several psychiatric diagnoses,” including depression, a panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the report.
A subject named “Amir,” an Iraqi in his late 20s held in Abu Ghraib prison from August 2003 to January 2005, “showed signs of rectal tearing that are highly consistent with his report of having been sodomized with a broomstick,” the report found.
“Yasser,” another Abu Ghraib detainee in his mid-40s, had scars on his thumbs and irregularities in the contours of his tongue, according to the report. The medical team concluded that the damage supports his contention that his American captors subjected him to electric shocks.
The problem here torture always follows the soldiers home. The people who were ordered to to this will come home, and many of them will end up in law enforcement, where they will do the same to someone who they think is not sufficiently respectful at a traffic stop.
The only answer is accountability at the very highest levels. By this, I do not mean that it stops at Rumsfeld. Bush and Cheney need to spend most of the rest of their lives in jail.
We Hid Prisoners from the Red Cross
Hey, if it’s not illegal torture, why was so much effort spent covering it up?
The U.S. military hid the locations of suspected terrorist detainees and concealed harsh treatment to avoid the scrutiny of the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to documents that a Senate committee released Tuesday.
“We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around. It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques,” Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, a military lawyer who’s since retired, said during an October 2002 meeting at the Guantanamo Bay prison to discuss employing interrogation techniques that some have equated with torture. Her comments were recorded in minutes of the meeting that were made public Tuesday. At that same meeting, Beaver also appeared to confirm that U.S. officials at another detention facility — Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan — were using sleep deprivation to “break” detainees well before then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved that technique. “True, but officially it is not happening,” she is quoted as having said.
…
These people need to spend the rest of their lives in jail.
Surprise, Torture and Abuse Readicalizes Non-Terrorists
We discover, to our surprise, that people with no connection with al Queida, following imprisonment and abuse by the United States, they become they tend to find common cause with terrorists.
It’s not just our torture that does it, it’s also that the innocent people in these prisons mix with real terrorists, and they learn from their inmates.
Once again, I am compelled to make the repeat the wisest thing that I’ve read this century:
But it does inspire in me the desire for a competition; can anyone, particularly the rather more Bush-friendly recent arrivals to the board, give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:
- It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
- It was significant enough in scale that I’d have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
- It wasn’t in some important way completely f#$@ed up during the execution.
Seriously, these people couldn’t screw up anything any more if they were an actual al Queida sleeper cell.
Torture Pushed Despite Legal Opinions
The Senate Armed Services Committee has reviewed documents surrounding the treatment of prisoners, and it now appears that the orders for torture came from the top down, not from the bottom up, as Rumsfeld and the rest of his merry band of sadists had insisted.
They were aggressively soliciting tortures from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) community, which was created to help US soldiers resist torture, so it’s clear that they knew.
What’s more, the sort of torture that SERE was created to combat was torture that had our servicemen lying, not revealing secrets.
They did not care that torture creates lies. They were not interested in accurate information. They just wanted to torture, because it made them feel strong.
This even shocked the sensabilities of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), though I have little doubt that when push comes to shove, he’ll cover for Bush and His Evil Minions™:
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the legal analysis from administration lawyers in 2002 will “go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation’s military and intelligence communities.”
….
In separate memos, the lawyers told the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the techniques warranted further study and could be illegal.
Seriously, these people need to go to jail for the rest of their lives.
US Gulags in Afghanistan Worse Than Gitmo
I want my country back.
Well, This Just Makes You Proud to be an American
Now we are using guards to drag physically drag detainees into court.
While some of these cases might be tough, it is clear that many are not, but they are still irrevocably tainted by the vile, and quite frankly un-American techniques endorsed and encouraged by the torture fetish crowd in the Bush White House.
Bush had the US Army Torture People for the Chinese
Just when I can’t imagine it get any worse, we have a report that U.S. Soldiers did the ‘Dirty Work’ for Chinese interrogators.
I believe that I have said on a number of occasions that Bush and His Evil Minions™ are objectively pro torture. By this, I mean that the want to torture.
They don’t care if it gives good information. They don’t care if the blowback creates more terrorists. They don’t care if it exposes Americans to torture.
They simply want to torture for some sick psycho-sexual gratification. How else can you explain them telling soldiers to torture prisoners on behalf of the totalitarian communist regime of the People’s Republic of China?
U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men — or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report.
Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there.
According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China’s ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators.
This leaves me stunned. This is evil on a level that I would have thought beyond even them.
I was misinformed.
5 Gitmo detainees to face 9/11 capital case – 05/12/2008 – MiamiHerald.com
In what is rather politically convenient timing, the Guantanamo kangaroo court has formally decided to charge Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ammar al Baluchi; Ramzi bin al Shibh, a Yemeni who allegedly organized the Sept. 11 suicide squads; and alleged co-conspirators Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi with capital offenses relating to the 911 attacks.
If the Bush administration gets its way, they’ll try to have the trial in process in September and October, though I think that the defense might throw a monkey wrench into the works.
The potential 6th defendant, Mohammad al-Qahtani, had all charges dropped, probably because all of the evidence against him was as a result of torture, though Paul Keil of TPM has an alternate hypothesis:
The Convening Authority Susan Crawford had planned to include charges against Mohammed al Qahtani, the supposed 20th hijacker, along with the other five, but Qahtani has been struck from the charging sheet. Now, Qahtani’s lawyer has immediately jumped to the conclusion that Crawford’s decision to dismiss the charges affirms “that everything he said at Guantánamo was extracted through torture — or the threat of torture,” and that his treatment was “so well documented and unconscionable that he is unprosecutable.” But I gotta figure that this crew is sharper than that. Crawford can bring those chargers against Qahtani at any time. The 20th hijacker deserves his own unique launch, to be sure. Maybe in October?
Me, I’m a cynic, so I’m inclined to go with Mr. Keil.
Bush and His Evil Minions™ Next Plan for Politicizing Terror Trials?
One of the things that is going on right now is that the Bush administration, recognizing that they will be leaving power shortly, are trying to protect themselves from future prosecution and litigation. Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker* notes that the Bush administration is desperately trying to make their system of kangaroo courts and torture appear legal, or, failing that, at least make it appear routine:
In any case, according to lawyers inside and outside government, the Bush Administration may launch a proposal for a national-security court this summer or fall, after what they presume will be its next loss in the Supreme Court. “It looks like when Boumediene comes down the Court may say to the President and Congress that they need more procedures for the detainees,” Goldsmith said. “So, to correct the problem, the President might consider sending something up to Congress this summer or fall. It would help the Republicans in the fall election.” The measure would force congressional Democrats to take a stand on the issue in the middle of the campaign—just as Bush did successfully with the Military Commissions Act after the Hamdan defeat. “It worked very well in 2006,” Goldsmith said. “The only way the Democrats have to not make it an election issue is to give the President the powers he seeks.”
Seeing as how the only driving ideology of the Bush administration has been the abuse of government power for political advantage, this surprises me not one whit.
H/t Mithras
*So there are other reasons to read them besides just the cartoons…though their cartoons are da bomb.
Guantanamo Court Bars Senior General from Participation
General Thomas Hartmann, the senior officer in the Office of Military Commissions, has been barred from any participation in the Hamdan trial by senior judge Navy Captain Keith Allred.
The defense, bolstered by testimony from former chief prosecutor Morris Davis, claimed that Hartmann was exerting undue pressure on the prosecutors to rush the “sexy cases”, and hurry prosecutions for political gain, and use evidence obtain by torture.
We are seeing increasing push back, on many levels against the Bush Agenda, by judicial and bureaucratic forces, because there is an increasing realization that Bush and His Evil Minions™ have less than 9 months left on their term, and they are irrelevant.
The judge’s decision on the Yoo memos also reflects this.
Federal Judge Demands Yoo Memo
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, Southern District of NY, is demanding Yoo’s Aug. 1, 2002 memo on interrogation techniques for the CIA.
He had earlier accepted claims of privilege by the US government, but reversed himself when the ACLU presented evidence that the memo had been, “incorporated into official practice and policy.”
Hopefully, we’ll see more of this.
Guantanamo Duty Puts Kibosh on Pakistan Posting for General
The Pentagon assigned Major General Jay W. Hood as the senior military officer in Pakistan, where he would be crucial to fighting al Queida.
The problem was that because of his role as commandant at the Guantanamo gulag, the Pakistanis did not want him there.
When Bush leaves office, I think that there will be a slew of senior officers who will be told to retire because of their involvement in torture. They are simply too toxic to remain militarily useful.
Hood is just the tip of the iceberg.
Bush Plans to Use Guantanamo Trials for November Election Failing
It appears that non only will they miss the election deadlines, but that the trials will not have started by the time that Bush leaves office either.
This affair is a complete cock-up. We already have the former prosecutor saying that administration officials were demanding convictions because an acquittal would be inconvenient, and , “and one high-ranking Pentagon officer has been quoted talking about the “strategic political value” of doing so before the November elections,” so it looks like this mess will be dumped on whoever is sworn in in 2009, as Will Bunch notes.
Senate Intelligence Committee Moves to Ban Torture by CIA Contractors
That’s the effect anyway, the actual bill would prohibit contractors from participating in CIA interrogations.
The bill would also require the CIA to follow Pentagon rules and to disclose all detainees to the Red Cross.
Needless to say, Bush will veto.
The Rule of Men, Not the Rule of Law
We now see some letters from Bush and His Evil Minions™ to Congress saying that they could torture who they wanted whenever they wanted, because they were motivated by a noble cause, because their intent was to prevent terrorism, “rather than for the purpose of humiliation or abuse.”
I don’t think that a single nation among the torturers has ever adopted it as a technique because it gave them the jollies*, they have done for precisely the reasons that you give. They wanted information, and to prevent acts that they deemed lawless.
We need to send these folks to the Hague for a fair trial in 2009.
*Dick Cheney excepted, of course. It gives him a stiffie.†
†Apologies for that mental image.
Bush Directly Approved Torture Techniques
He knew that his advisers were discussing this, and he approved their activities:
“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people.” Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”
He needs to spend the rest of his life in jail
Bullsh@$!!!!, John Yoo, Torturer Edition
The National Lawyers Guild is calling for Yoo’s firing by UC Berkeley and his disbarment.
Additionally, they call for him to be tried as a war criminal.
Christopher Edley, Jr., the Dean of the UC Law School, is saying that while he disagrees with Yoo’s positions, it would be an infringement on academic freedom to take action against him.
Christopher Edley, Jr. is an embarrassment to the profession of law, and to the entire academic world for taking this position, though I don’t think that Edley should be fired for this.
The difference between espousing torture and engaging in a criminal conspiracy to promulgate actual torture.
There is a difference between a lawyer who defends a mobster, and a Consigliere, who actively aids and abets law breaking. Mr. Yoo was clearly the latter.
I would also note that in some of the lesser known Nuremberg trials, judges and lawyers were tried and convicted for their roles which consisted of supplying legal advice and justifications, just like Yoo:
Indictment
- Participating in a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity;
- War crimes through the abuse of the judicial and penal process, resulting in mass murder, torture, plunder of private property.
- Crimes against humanity on the same grounds, including slave labor charges.
I would suggest that anyone on the UC fund raising or alumni list seriously consider their responses in the future.
Check out my earlier post on this matter merely referred to one of the General’s magnificent snarks, so you might want to look elsewhere for greater analysis.
The Smoking Gun on Torture
We now have a report out of ABC news that high ranking Bush administration officials discussed specific torture methods.
According the reports, this was discussed at a “Principals Committee” meeting, and that, “At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.”
It’s clear however that they knew that they were breaking the law:
Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.
According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”
Neither will the folks in The Hague.